A disgraced Missouri firefighter pleaded guilty to stealing the wallet of a car crash victim when he responded to the scene of a fatal accident.
Car crash victim robbed after incident that killed four
The accident happened in the early hours of February 26, 2023 in St. Louis, when Cedric Dixon, 34, ran a red light and collided with a Chevy Tahoe carrying eight passengers, all under 21.
The impact knocked the Tahoe over a guardrail, crashing upside down on the street below.
The crash took the lives of 20-year-old Corntrail McKinley, 19-year-old Anthony Robinson, 19-year-old Richard Boyd, and 18-year-old Bryanna Johnson.
Four others were injured, including Seven Robinson-Laney who suffered broken bones, a concussion, and a back injury.
While waiting for transport to the hospital, a first responder, who he believed was a police officer at the time asked for Robinson-Laney’s wallet to check for identification.
Robinson-Laney handed it over, and the official returned his ID but pocketed the wallet, as later seen in bodycam footage.
Two weeks later, when Robinson-Laney recovered and realized his wallet was missing. Having recently celebrated his 18th birthday, his wallet had $200 in gift cards and around $700 in cash, along with credit and debit cards.
Robinson-Laney reported the incident to police, who identified the first responder as as Arnold Britt, a firefighter in St. Louis for the past nine years.
Britt spent $120 on the debit card that the told investigators he believed was his wife’s as it came from the same bank.
Britt was initially put on administrative leave by his department, but prosecutors declined to press charges, which allowed him to return to work.
Firefighter hit with charges for robbing car crash victim
In an unforeseen loop-hole, the debit card purchases occurred in St. Louis County, and County Prosecutor Christopher King eventually charged him.
Britt pleaded guilty to felony receiving stolen property and misdemeanor fraudulent use of the debit card on Monday. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for early September.
Despite Britt his lack of criminal record, prosecutors want to make an example out of him to keep other public servants from similar misconduct and are pushing for concurrent sentences of five years in prison for stealing the wallet and one year for the debit card fraud.
Britt is “no longer a member” of the fire department and Robinson-Laney doesn’t think the theft was accidental.
“Everything he did was, like, this is not his first time doing this,” he commented. “It was just, like, this is what he does.”
“It’s hurtful,” he added. “It wasn’t just an accident; it was the deaths of youth. You took from people that could have been dead.”
Cedric Dixon, the driver who caused the crash, also faced prosecution and pleaded guilty to four counts of involuntary manslaughter, four counts of second-degree assault, and one count of leaving the scene of a crash. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Lunatic harasses firefighters
In a separate incident, a man in Los Angeles was caught on camera trying to get onto a moving fire truck.
The footage showed him sprinting into the street and hopping onto the moving fire engine responding to an emergency.
The man can be seen hanging on to the fire truck as it backed up, in what appeared to be an effort to get him to let go.
He was able to hang on and even reached inside, apparently attempting to grab the firefighters.
Eventually two firefighters exited the fire engine to physically get the man off the truck, who then ran away as he was chased by the firefighters.
After they gave up their chase, the man once again came back and hopped onto the rig. He reportedly wouldn’t harassing the first responders inside the truck until arrived on scene. Officers used force to subdue and detain him.
The fire truck was unable to reach the car crash it was dispatched to, which caused another unit to be sent in its place.
The man was arrested and now faces charges for interfering with the discharge of duty by a firefighter or emergency rescue personnel and felony assault.
